Saturday, March 10, 2007

The Grumbling Israelite

Have you ever had 'one of those days'? Not when anything major goes wrong but just a lot of little things which makes you whinge and complain like there's no tomorrow. Yes? I reckon a lot of you are nodding in agreement.

For me, last Thursday was 'one of those days'. I didn't wake up on the wrong side of the bed if that's what you were wondering (my bed is up against a wall so I can only get out one side). However I was pretty tired from being undisciplined with sleep rations during the week and when a workmate told me I looked like I had bags under my eyes, that started my descent into a 'mood'.

I quickly looked at myself in the mirror and my eyeliner had smudged which caused me to look like I had shadows under my eyes. But even after I fixed that up I still looked pretty whacked! Then I received the news that the lecturer whom I was going to be teaching a class for later that afternoon, had decided to change the content at the last minute! Boy, was I annoyed! I'm the type of person who likes to be organised, prepared and 'in control'. I didn't want to rock up at the class and just wing it. So I was panicking that I had to change the script and handouts extremely quickly and probably didn't check them thoroughly.

My grumbling increased no end. I grumbled that the library was packed full of students and was noisy and I felt like shouting, "GET OUT!". I grumbled that there were people wandering all over the place in a daze and I had to push through them quickly, going "Excuse me.....EXCUSE ME!". I grumbled that I was becoming increasingly absent-minded (and I can't blame it on old age or pregnancy!).
  • I was so tired I decided I needed a Coke, put my money in the vending machine but pressed the wrong number and ended up with Coke Zero when I wanted the real thing!
  • I stuck my bankcard in the photocopier instead of my photocopying card.
  • The photocopiers kept producing poor quality photocopies because the glass was scratched and dirty.

I was fed up and just didn't feel like dealing with people. When it was my turn to do a shift on the Reference Desk, I was joined by a workmate who was having a foul day like me. In fact, her day was worse because her car had broken down on her way to work and she had gotten a lot of abuse from people for holding up a lane of traffic (she responded with the one finger salute). I was delighted to talk to someone who was also in a crabby mood (happy people are the worst people to be around when you're irritable) and we whinged and complained and grumbled and then whinged some more.

I can't stand it when I'm in a bad mood and I get patronised by people. I've seen lots of people do it to each other. They know someone's in a bad mood and want to be left alone but they deliberately go up to them and tease them then wonder why they get snapped at. I'm not suggesting it's right to have angry outbursts and bite people's heads off but those people KNOW that they're being provocative and they just want to see the other person lose their temper. DO NOT do this! If you see someone in a less than pleasant mood and keeping to themselves, then leave them alone. They're probably staying away from people so they can get over whatever it is that's bugging them and NOT snap at others. Think about how you'd feel if someone did that to you.

If you're Christian (or even if you're not) have you ever read Exodus and thought 'gee the Israelites are an ungrateful lot'? After all God had done for them, how on earth could they grumble so much. Now I know I'm no different. God has given me so much yet I was focusing on the negatives and any excuse to grumble would do. Grumbling is serious, yet I constantly fail to respond with thanksgiving even to difficult situations - some which don't look so bad after a while.

So there's my rant for the week. After that day was over I did feel pretty silly about being moody. Thank God that Duncan and I are now in Albany this weekend for my brother's 21st. I'll blog about it when I get back!

1 comment:

bek said...

Ive had one of those days today.
Some people just dont get it do they!! AAHH